Patchwork
by Rinkinkirs
Summary: They're both so much more than that. AU, Daryl/Glenn.


**Notes:** Warnings for allusions to abuse and references to racism. I think that's mostly everything though I can't be sure, but if you're wondering, this is mostly about skin and scars and bad studying habits. (I wrote this between 3 and 4 am, too, which probably counts as a warning.) Written February 1.

* * *

It's almost funny, except for all the ways it's not. Most people — his parents among them — see Glenn shacked up with some good-for-nothing hick with little to no education, and most of Daryl's (Merle's) old friends see Daryl fucking a— well, he's not going to open that particular can of worms.

They're both so much more than that.

Daryl's a qualified mechanic, his last test only just passed, and he teaches archery a couple of times a week. He helps Glenn study sometimes, if helping means Daryl smirking every time he refuses to speak until Glenn's finished the chapter he's working on, or avoiding Glenn's very effective kissing-turned-sex technique until he's studied long enough to pass his exams (or, if Glenn's lucky, until Daryl huffs at him and drags his trousers down for a quick tumble right there in the kitchen).

And Glenn slides his hands across Daryl's skin, up his arms and to his back, finding ridges and shapes and tracing the past with his fingertips. When they were still new, the two of them, Daryl would shift uncomfortably and shrug him off, but now he just laughs quietly into Glenn's hair, indulging him; for as much sadness there is etched into Daryl's skin, it's shaped him into the person Glenn loves, warts and all.

Scars and all.

Because Daryl's skin isn't white at all. If anything, Daryl's more conscious of his own skin than Glenn's, despite his Pa; rather, because of his Pa, and in spite of Merle.

There's bright, almost-white lines on Daryl's biceps; dark, mottled circles on his forearm, just short of his elbow, yellow and brown and almost black. His back is a mess of pink and orange and blue-ish scars in all shapes and sizes, some almost invisible and others yet in sharp relief, and they're all a part of him, permanent and unforgiving.

Glenn slides his mouth up Daryl's arm in a patchwork of kisses, not seeking them out but not ignoring them either, and he loves them because he loves Daryl and he loves the dark parts of him as much as the bright parts, even when he gets that wild look in his eyes that means they'll have to take off for a week so Daryl can run away into the woods.

Daryl moans as Glenn kisses up his neck, flushed with desire, and when Glenn kisses him again he whirls them around to press Glenn into the kitchen counter, catching him when he steps on Daryl's shirt and loses his balance, and Daryl nips at his lower lip and smiles, and Glenn can't fathom why no one else seems to see what he does, how just the slightest turn of lips can brighten Glenn's day even when he's soaking wet from walking home in the rain after one of his too-many exams, even when Daryl's making him study for yet another and stumbling on Daryl's shirt and Daryl's fingers are wonderful, wonderful—

and he groans, falling into Daryl's chest as his thoughts stutters to a stop, slouching to rest his head in the curve of Daryl's neck.

"You okay there?" Daryl mumbles, out of breath and shaky, and Glenn just pats his chest and makes an agreeable noise. Daryl has probably ruined his last clean shirt — which means he has to steal something of Daryl's to do laundry in — and he doesn't even mind.

And then, his fingers find the new scar on Daryl's shoulder, a bright L-shape in fresh pink, and he smiles into Daryl's neck and Daryl huffs a laugh into his hair and this is one of the reasons he loves Daryl's skin, because it remembers that one time they got too rough and Daryl fell on the bedside table when the bed failed them, and Glenn carefully cleaned it and patched him up and Daryl didn't even need stitches but he still treasured the memory, the way Daryl had looked at him as if he was in awe that Glenn cared so much about him that he'd make a fuss about a tiny little cut.

Daryl gives him that same look, now, before he smacks his butt and tells him to study and Glenn bites at his neck and tells him to go screw himself, and then he goes to study anyway, because Daryl says he might just do that and Glenn's free to join him after he's done with his current chapter and Glenn has eight pages to go.


End file.
